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by Stefan Zweig 
illustrations by Joseph Malay 


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Copyright 1926 | 
by the Pynson Printers, Inc., New Yo 


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THE INVISIBLE COLLECTION was printed originally 
in the Berlin Vossische Zeitung of May 31,1925. 
The translation was made by The Living Age of 
Boston for the issue of August 1,1925. 
For the privilege of making this reprint thanks are 
tendered to the Vossische Zeitung, to the Living Age, 
and especially to Mr. Stefan Zweig. 











The Invisible Collection 





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TWO STATIONS beyond Dresden an 
elderly gentleman entered our com- 
partment, greeted the passengers 
courteously, sat down opposite me, 
and nodded to me as if I were an old 
acquaintance. I did not recognize 
him at first, but when he mentioned 
his name with a half-smile I at once recalled him as 
one of the best-known art-dealers and antiquarians in 
Berlin, from whom in the days before the war I often 
bought old books and autographs. We spoke of in- 
different matters, until he interrupted the trend of 
conversation to say: ‘I must tell you how I happen to 
be here. I have just had the rarest adventure that ever 
befell an old art-peddler like me—the strangest in my 
thirty-seven years of business.’ 





This trip is one of those impromptu, new-fashioned 
business jaunts that are among the few pleasant things 
this unhappy inflation craze has brought us home- 
keeping antiquarians. 

Probably you don’t know what art-dealing is like 
since the value of money has been vanishing like a 
flash. The newly rich have just discovered that their 


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hearts are yearning for Gothic Madonnas and incuna- 
bula and old embroideries and pictures. You can’t get 
enough to supply them. I have to fight desperately to 
keep them from buying me out of house and home— 
from taking the cuff-links out of my shirt and the lamp 
off my desk. At the same time we are having a harder 
and harder time to get any goods to sell. Pardon the 
word ‘goods’; I know it jars upon a man like you, but 
these fellows use it so much that I have picked it up 
in spite of myself. In fact, I have come to regard a 
marvelous Venetian original edition much as I should 
an overcoat that cost so many dollars, and a sketch 
by Cuercino as merely the incarnation of a bank note 
for a few thousand francs. 

In casting about for something to sell, it occurred 
to me to look through my old ledgers and letter books, 
to see if there were not people among our old cus- 
tomers who would be glad to raise money on some of 
the things they bought from me in their better years 
before the war. Such an old customers’ list is a sort 
of mortuary record to-day, and I did not find many 
addresses that I could use. Most of my former clients 
had long since auctioned off all they owned or were 
dead, and I had nothing to hope for from the few who 


11 


remained. Just as I was about to give up in despair, I 
chanced upon a whole file of letters from a gentleman 
who was perhaps my oldest customer, but whose name 
had slipped my mind because I had not heard from 
him since before the war. 

This correspondence was a remarkable one. It went 
back almost sixty years. The writer had bought from 
my father and my grandfather. Yet I could not recall 
having seen him in my shop during the thirty-seven 
years since it was mine. Everything seemed to show 
that he was one of those odd, old-fashioned eccentrics 
such as survived here and there in our provincial 
towns until quite recently. His letters were written like 
copperplate. Each item in his order was underlined 
with a ruler and red ink. He always mentioned figures 
twice, so that there might be no mistake. These peculi- 
arities, as well as the fact that he wrote his notes on 
torn-out flyleaves and enclosed them in miscellane- 
ous envelopes that he had picked up here and there, 
stamped him asa punctilious penny-saving provincial. 
After his signature he always signed in full ‘Provincial 
Forester and Farm Steward, Retired; Lieutenant, 
Retired; Holder of the Iron Cross First-class.’ Since 
he must be a veteran of the Franco-Prussian War, 


12 


he could not be under his middle eighties, if he were 
still alive. 

Nevertheless, this ridiculous, cheese-paring miser 
showed remarkable shrewdness, knowledge, and taste 
as a collector of old prints and engravings. When I 
listed his orders for almost sixty years, beginning with 
those amounting to a few silver pennies, I discovered 
that this little provincial had quietly got together, in 
the days when a dollar would buy a stack of the finest 
German woodcuts, a collection of etchings and en- 
eravings easily outrivaling many of the widely adver- 
tised collections of the newly rich. Merely those that 
he had bought from us during a half-century, for a 
mark or a few pfennigs apiece, were now of untold 
value; and 1 had every reason to assume that he had 
also purchased at auctions and from other dealers. 
Since 1914: we had not received a single order from 
him; but I was familiar enough with what was going 
on in the art trade to feel sure that such a collection 
had never been dispersed either by auction or by 
private sale. I therefore concluded that this remark- 
able man must still be alive, or else that his collection 
remained in the hands of his heirs. 

The case so interested me that I left the following 


13 


day—that is, yesterday evening—directly for his place 
of residence; one of the scrubbiest little provincial 
towns in Saxony. When I got off the train at the tiny 
station and walked up through the principal street it 
seemed to me utterly incredible that anyone living in 
its banal little gimcrack cottages, with their chromos 
and impossible factory-furniture, could possibly own 
some of the finest of Rembrandt’s etchings and Diirer’s 
engravings, and a complete collection of Mantegnas. 
In fact it was with a feeling of surprise that I learned 
at the post office that a Provincial Forester and Farm 
Steward of the name of my former correspondent was 
still alive and actually residing in the town. 

You can well imagine that I sought his lodgings 
with a violently beating heart. They were not difficult 
to find. He lived in the second story of one of those 
plain, cheaply constructed small-town tenements that 
speculative jerry-builders used to put up back in the 
sixties of the last century. An honest merchant-tailor 
occupied the first floor; the card of a post office em- 
ployee was on the left-hand side in the second story, 
and on the right side was a white porcelain plate with 
the nameand titles of the Provincial Forester and KFarm 
Steward. A very old white-haired lady wearing a tidy 


14 


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black cap immediately answered my hesitating knock. 
I handed her my card and asked if I might see the Herr 
Forstrat. She gazed at me and then at the card with 
a look of surprise mingled with a certain distrust. 
Apparently a visit was something of an event in this 
old-fashioned house and out-of-way corner of the 
world. But she asked me in a gentle voice to wait, 
took the card, and went into a room. I first heard a 
light whispering and then suddenly a stentorian mas- 
culine voice saying: ‘Ah, Herr R__ from Berlin, the 
great antiquarian. Let him come in, let him come in, 
I’m delighted to meet him.’ Immediately the little old 
grandmother trotted out and invited me to enter. 

I took off my hat and did so. In the middle of the 
modest room stood a tall, aged, but still vigorous man, 
with a bushy moustache, wearing a half-military, 
frogged smoking-jacket, who cordially held out both 
hands toward me. But in spite of this friendly gesture, 
and his obviously spontaneous and sincere cordiality, 
he made no move to meet me. | had to advance, 
slightly embarrassed, to grasp his hand. As I did so I 
observed that he held them motionless in front of 
him, without attempting to clasp mine. The next mo- 
ment | understood. The old gentleman was blind. 


16 


Ever since I was a child I have felt uncomfortable 
in the presence of blind people. I have always had a 
vague embarrassed feeling that in some way 1 had an 
unfair advantage over them. I was keenly conscious 
of this sensation as I glanced up at the old gentle- 
man’s eyes, which stared straight ahead of him under 
his bushy white brows. But he did not allow me to 
think of this more than an instant. As soon as my 
hand touched his he shook it heartily, and exclaimed, 
laughing with almost boisterous delight: ‘A rare visit! 
A miracle! That a big gentleman like you from Berlin 
should drop into our little nest. . . . But a man has 
to look out when one of you big experts is on his trail. 
We have a saying here: “Lock your doors and look to 
your pockets when the gypsies come.” Yes, sir! Yes, 
sir! I can guess already what brought you. Business 
is bad now in our poor distressed Germany. Nobody 
wants to buy anything, so you big gentlemen are out 
canvassing your old customers. But I am afraid you 
won't have much luck with me. We old pensioners are 
thankful to have a crust of bread to eat. We can’t go 
on collecting at the present crazy prices. We’re out 
of the game.’ 

I told him at once that he was mistaken. I had not 


17 








come to sell him anything. I merely happened to be in 
the neighborhood and seized the opportunity to drop 
in and pay my respects to an old client of our firm 
and one of the greatest collectors in Germany. When 
I said ‘one of the greatest collectors in Germany’ a 
pleased expression flashed over the old man’s face. 
He still stood stiff and erect in the middle of the room, 
but his posture instantly betrayed his pride and grati- 
fication. He turned to the spot where he thought his 
wife was as if to say: “Do you hear that?’ Then with 
a voice trembling with pleasure, and dropping the 
brusque military tone he had previously used, he said 
softly, almost tenderly: ‘That is really very, very kind 
of you. But you must not have made your visit here in 
vain. You shall see something that you won’t see every 
day, even in Berlin—a couple of pieces that cannot 
be rivaled in the Albertina or in Paris, God curse 
her! Yes, sir, when a man has collected for sixty years, 
things fall into his hands that you do not pick up 
anywhere in the street. Louise, just give me the key 
to the cupboard.’ 

Thereupon something strange happened. The little 
old lady, who was standing by his side and listening to 
our conversation with a sympathetic smile, suddenly 


EY 


raised both hands toward me with an imploring ges- 
ture. I didn’t understand for a moment. Then, turning 
to her husband and laying both hands lightly on his 
shoulders, she said: ‘But, Herwarth, you haven’t asked 
the gentleman whether he has time to look at your 
collection. It is almost dinner-time. After dinner you 
must rest an hour. The physician insists on that. Isn’t 
it better to show the gentleman all these things after 
dinner and have him take a cup of coffee with us? At 
that time Anna Marie will be here. She understands 
it all so much better and can help you.’ 

The moment she finished speaking she turned to 
me and repeated the same imploring gesture, which 
I now understood. I saw that she wanted me to refuse 
to look at his things just then, and so I invented an 
urgent dinner-engagement. It would be a great plea- 
sure and an honor to look over his collection, but I 
could hardly do so before three o’clock that afternoon. 
I should be happy to call again at that hour if he would 
permit me. The old man turned around impatiently, 
angry as a child deprived of his favorite plaything. 
‘Of course,’ he growled, ‘you Berlin gentlemen never 
have time. But to-day you must take time, for you are 
not looking at three or four pieces. I have twenty-seven 


20 


portfolios, each one for a different artist, and every 
one is more than half full. Make it three o’clock then, 
but come promptly or we shall not finish.’ 

The little old lady accompanied me to the door. I 
had noticed that she seemed worried and uncomfort- 
able. As she opened the door she said abruptly in a 
low voice: ‘Would you—would you mind speaking to 
my daughter Anna Marie before you come? It is better 
in many ways. Of course you dine at the hotel?’ 

‘Certainly, I shall be very happy to do so,’ I said. 

And in fact an hour later, just as I stepped into the 
little parlor of the hotel on the market place after a 
mid-day dinner, an elderly spinster very plainly clad 
entered the room, apparently looking for somebody. I 
stepped up to her at once, introduced myself, and said 
I should be happy to go with her to see the collection. 
She blushed violently and, with the same confused 
embarrassment that her mother had shown, begged to 
say a few words to me first. I could see that she was 
in great distress. The moment she began to speak her 
face turned red and her fingers played nervously with 
a button on her coat. Finally she stammered: ‘My 
mother has sent me to you. She has told me the whole 
story. We have a great favor to ask. We want to tell 


21 


you before you come to father. Father naturally will 
show you his collection, and the collection—the col- 
lection—is no longer complete. A number of pieces, 
quite a number, are lacking.’ She had to stop for 
breath. Then, looking up suddenly straight into my 
eyes, she continued with an effort: — 

‘I must tell you the whole thing. You know the 
times. You will understand. Father became completely 
blind after the war. Even before that he could not see 
very well, and the excitement of the war—well, it de- 
stroyed his sight completely. In spite of his seventy 
years, he was determined to go to France. And as soon 
as he saw that the army was not getting forward as 
it did in 1870 he was so agitated that his eyes failed 
him rapidly. In other respects he was still vigorous. 
Until this happened, he could make long trips—yes, 
even go hunting. Now he cannot take walks and his 
only pleasure is his collection. He looks at it every 
day. That is, of course he doesn’t see it—he doesn’t 
see anything —but he takes out his portfolios every 
_ afternoon so that he can feel the pieces one after an- 
other. He knows them by heart. Nothing else interests 
him; and I have to read all the auction notices in the 
newspapers to him. The higher the prices go the 


22 


happier he is, for—that is the worst of it—father no 
longer understands what prices mean in these days. 
He doesn’t know that we have lost everything and 
that his pension would not support us two days of 
the month. Besides that, my sister’s husband fell in 
the war and left her with four little children. But 
father knows nothing of our money cares. First we 
economized, economized more than ever, but that 
didn’t do. Then we began to sell things. Naturally we 
didn’t touch his beloved collection. We sold what 
jewelry we had. That was not much, for father had 
spent every penny that he could scrape together for 
sixty years on his drawings and engravings. One day 
we had nothing left. We didn’t know what to do, and 
then—and then—mother and I sold one piece. Father . 
would not have allowed it; he didn’t know what a 
pinch we were in. He had no idea how hard it was 
to get a bit of food. He doesn’t know yet that we lost 
the war and have had to give up Alsace-Lorraine. 
We don’t read such things to him in the newspapers. 

‘The first piece we sold was a very valuable one, 
a Rembrandt. The dealer offered us many, many 
thousand marks, and we hoped they would support 
us for a year. But you know how money melts away. 


23 





We put the entire sum in a bank and in two months 
it was gone. After that we had to sell another piece, 
and still another. And the dealer always sent the 
money so late that it was not worth much when we 
got it. Then we tried to sell at auction, and we were 
cheated there in spite of the millions we received. 
By the time the millions reached us they were already 
worthless. So gradually the best things in his collec- 
tion, except a very few, have gone, and we have re- 
ceived for them barely enough to exist on. Father 
does not know a thing about it. 

‘That is why my mother was so frightened when 
you came. He would have discovered the whole thing, 
for we have put blank sheets of paper of the same 
size and practically the same thickness in place of 
each piece we took out, so he doesn’t notice it when 
he handles them. He gets the same pleasure from 
handling them that he formerly got from looking at 
the originals. There is nobody here in our little village 
that father ever thought worthy of seeing them. He 
loves every piece with a fanatical love, and it would 
break his heart if he knew one of them had been 
sold. You are the first man during all these years— 
since the death of the old Director of the Dresden 


20 


Print Department,who used to visit us often—to whom 
he has offered to show his treasures. So I beg you—’ 

The poor woman hesitated and raised her hands 
toward me with tear-dimmed eyes. ‘I beg you, don’t 
destroy his happiness. Don’t destroy our happiness. 
Don’t spoil his last illusion. Help us to make him Ῥε- 
lieve that all the pieces that he thinks he is showing 
you are really there. He would not survive the shock 
if he knew the truth. We may have done wrong, but 
we could not do otherwise. People must live and— 
well, four fatherless children like my sister’s are more 
important than any prints. And so far he is very happy. 
He spends three hours each afternoon lingering over 
his portfolios, talking to the pieces in his collection 
as if they were human beings. And to-day I think 
will be the happiest of all. He has been waiting for 
years to show his pets to someone who could appre- 
ciate them as he does. I beg you, do not rob him of 
that joy.’ 

She said all this with an agitation, with a depth of 
emotion, that I cannot convey to you here. I have 
seen many a shady deal in my business. I have seen 
many a man swindled most scurvily during the present 
inflation, and valuable estates go for a crust of bread. 


26 


But this was a case that for some reason went straight 
to my heart. Of course I promised her not to say a 
word, and to do my best to carry out the deception. 

So we went back to her house together. On the 
way I learned with a shock for what miserably inade- 
quate sums these poor ignorant women had sold the 
old man’s treasures. So 1 determined to help them 
the best I could. We went upstairs and had hardly 
reached the door when I heard the old man’s sten- 
torian voice calling: ‘Come in, come in.’ With the 
keen ear of the blind he must have recognized our 
footsteps on the stairs. 

‘Herwarth could not sleep to-day—he was so im- 
patient to show you his precious pictures,’ the old lady 
said, laughing. A glance at her daughter told her 
everything was all right. A great heap of portfolios 
lay in order on the table. As soon as the blind man 
felt my hand he grasped me by the arm and pulled 
me down into a chair beside him. 

‘So now we will begin. We have a great deal to 
look at, and you gentlemen from Berlin never have 
much time. The first portfolio is by Master Durer 
and, as you will soon see for yourself, quite complete. 
And each one finer than the others! But I must not 


27 


talk. You will judge with your own eyes. Look, now!’ 
He opened the first portfolio—‘The Big Horse.’ 

With cautious, light-tipped fingers he drew forth, 
as tenderly as if he were handling the most delicate 
piece of porcelain, a yellow, blank sheet of paper, and 
held it up for me to see. As he fixed his sightless eyes 
upon it, holding it out level in front of him, an expres- 
sion of ecstatic admiration crossed his face. I was 
almost startled at what seemed to be a glow of recog- 
nition in his eyes. 

‘Now,’ he said proudly, ‘did you ever see a finer 
impression? Note how sharp, how clear, every detail is. 
| have compared this copy with the one in Dresden and 
that one looks flat and heavy beside it. And its pedigree! 
Look there!’ He turned the sheet over and pointed 
with his finger nail to a place on the back of the blank 
paper. He did it so convincingly that I involuntarily 
leaned forward to see.“There you have the stamp of the 
Nagler Collection. Here that of Remy and Esdaille. 
They never thought—those great predecessors of mine 
—that this sheet would ever get here in my little room.’ 

A cold shudder ran down my back as I watched 
the unsuspecting old man’s rapture over this mean- 
ingless scrap of paper. There was something spectral 


28 








and weird in the certainty with which his finger nail 
traced what he saw only in his imagination. 

‘Unrivaled!’ I finally managed to stammer.*‘A mag- 
nificent copy!’ 

His face glowed with pride. ‘But that’s nothing,’ 
he said triumphantly. “You must first see the “Melan- 
choly” or the “Passion”—a colored print. I doubt if 
it has an equal. Look, now.’ Again his fingers tenderly 
drew out an imaginary print. ‘Just observe the fresh, 
lifelike, warm tone. There’s something to make Berlin 
and its dealers and museum professors sit up and 
take notice.’ | 

And it went on like this, in a paean of triumph, 
for two whole hours. I cannot describe what an un- 
canny feeling it gave me to gaze at these hundred or 
two hundred pieces of blank paper, to realize what 
they represented to that old man, and to watch the 
tragic, unsuspecting assurance with which he pointed 
out, with infallible certainty as to every minutest de- 
tail, the beauties and merits of each piece. Indeed, it 
was so real to him that almost caught his ownillusion. 

Only once did we come close to the verge of a 
rude awakening. He was showing me what he sup- 
posed was a Rembrandt ‘Antiope’— a trial proof that 


30 


must have been of inestimable value—and as he di- 
lated on the sharpness of the print, and passed his 
nervous, sensitive fingers over it, he missed some 
light, familiar indentation. A shadow flashed across 
his face and his voice trembled hesitatingly as he 
said, with an interrogatory accent: ‘It’s—it’s—that’s 
the “Antiope”?’ But I hurriedly took the piece from 
his hand and proceeded to describe with well-feigned 
enthusiasm a dozen familiar points in the actual 
etching. 

His puzzled expression instantly vanished. The 
more 1 praised the more radiant he grew, until at last 
he burst out triumphantly to his wife and daughter: 
‘Here’s a man who knows what these things are worth. 
You have always grumbled and complained because 1 
put my money into this collection. It is true—for sixty 
years no beer, no wine, no tobacco, no traveling, no 
theatres, no books, just saving and saving for these 
“pictures.” But when I am dead and gone you’ll see, 
you will be rich—richer than anyone in town, as rich 
as the richest folks in Dresden. Then you can live as 
you want to, and have a good time. But as long as I’m 
alive not a thing here shall leave the house. I shall be 
carried out first. After me my collection.’ 


31 


As he spoke he placed his hand tenderly over his 
portfolios as if they were something alive, with a 
touching —and under the circumstances a tragic — 
gesture. Since the outbreak of the war I had not seen 
an expression of such absolute happiness on the face 
of a German. His wife stood beside him, watching his 
pleasure with tear-dimmed eyes. But the old man 
could not have enough of my praise and appreciation. 
He kept turning the portfolios over again and again, 
drinking in every word 1 had to say. I felt relieved of 
a weight of responsibility when the deceptive port- 
folios were at length laid to one side and the coffee 
placed on the table. 

Thereupon the old man began to tell me a thou- 
sand anecdotes of his purchases. At each good story he 
would fumble for his portfolios, refusing any assist- 
ance, in order to show me once more the particular 
print in question. When I finally said that I must go 
he was tremendously put out, as vexed as a naughty 
child threatened with a whipping. He stamped his feet 
impatiently and insisted that I had not seen half of 
what he had. It was with great difficulty that the two 
ladies could persuade him that he must not keep me 
longer, or else 1 should lose my train. 


32 


4 





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4. 


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When finally he was reconciled to my going and 
we said good-bye, his voice suddenly softened to 
gentleness again. Taking both my hands, he ran his 
fingers caressingly over them and up my arms with 
a blind man’s eagerness to learn what I was like, and 
at the same time as if to express affection. 

“You have given me a very great pleasure by your 
visit,’ he began with a very little quaver in his voice. 
‘It has been a real joy to me—at last, at last, at last 
to be able to show my collection to a man who appre- 
ciates it. And you shall see that you have not come in 
vain to visit an old blind man. I promise you here, 
with my wife as a witness, that I shall put a clause in my 
will commissioning your old reliable firm to auction 
my collection.’ As he said this the old man laid his hand 
again caressingly upon his pillaged portfolios. ‘Only 
promise me that they shall have a handsome catalogue. 
That will be my monument. I do not want any better.’ 

I looked at his wife and daughter, who were standing 
side by side, trembling with their common emotion. 
The solemnity of the occasion impressed us all, as this 
unsuspecting old gentleman, with such a touching dis- 
play of feeling, made a last disposition of his dearest 
treasure. 


34, 





The ladies accompanied me to the door. They did 
not venture to speak, because his sharp ears would 
have caught every word. But tears were flowing down 
their cheeks. As I stumbled down the stairs, half dazed 
by it all, I somehow felt ashamed of my profession. 
Here I had come, a bargain-hunting dealer, hoping to 
buy cheaply a few valuable prints. But the memory 
that I took away with me was something infinitely 
better than those would have been—I had seen once 
more the light of pure, unalloyed delight and joy in 
this gloomy, joyless age. 

As I reached the street I heard the sound of a 
window opening above and my name called. The old 
man had insisted on looking out in the direction he as- 
sumed 1 was going, although he could see nothing with 
his blind eyes. He leaned out so far that the women had 
to hold him, and waving his pocket handkerchief he 
shouted after me‘A pleasant journey!’ with the merry, 
happy voice of a boy. I shall never forget the sight of 
the white-haired old gentleman’s happy face in the 
window, high above the hastening, harried, careworn 
crowd below. And I thought how true the old saying 
is—I believe it is Goethe’s —‘Collectors are happy 
creatures.’ 


96 





THIS BOOK WAS MADE 
BY THE PYNSON PRINTERS OF NEW YORK 
IN THE MONTH OF DECEMBER 


NINETEEN TWENTY-SIX 


er 





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GETTY CENTER LIBRARY 


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